Archaeology in Oceania最新文献

Here, we report on the results of microCT scanning and Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating of fragments of charred archaeological parenchyma collected from surface deposits at Nombe rockshelter in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Five fragments are taxonomically identified as sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas). Two subsamples from the largest fragment yield a combined AMS date range of c. 300–148 calBP (with median probabilities of 187 and 195 calBP respectively). Although post-dating European voyaging in the Indo-Pacific, these findings contribute to the corpus of information regarding the antiquity of sweet potato on the island of New Guinea.

Archaeological sites in the Ndughore Valley of Kolombangara Island in the New Georgia group of the western Solomon Islands were investigated in 1971. The sites include formerly-irrigated pondfield terrace complexes in the valley bottom, ridgetop residential hamlets and specialised ritual sites. The presence of European material culture such as trade beads, clay pipes, glass, a musket barrel and iron axe head all indicate that these sites were occupied and utilised during the nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, a turbulent period marked by increased inter-island raiding and head-hunting as well as by trade with Europeans. The residential hamlets and ritual sites are situated in defensible positions on ridgetops, while one site was extensively modified for musket warfare. Ancestor shrines at the residential sites are consistent with a widespread New Georgia cultural tradition, containing shell exchange valuables indicating that the Kolombangara community was linked into a larger exchange network.

The Sāmoa Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Database was begun in 2016 as an ongoing means of encouraging and assisting more archaeological research in Sāmoa. It is also building a stronger engagement between the Archaeology and Cultural Heritage research and teaching programme at the Centre for Sāmoan Studies at the National University with government agencies here, and is contributing to the still incomplete processes of preparing heritage protection legislation. Known as “Utu” (meaning “a container for treasures”). The Sāmoa Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Database maps known archaeological sites and previously undocumented sites identified by surveys and analysis of LiDAR images using a global information system (GIS) program. Mapped sites are linked to information about them, including archaeological analysis, historical sources, and oral traditions and any other available information. The work so far has provided new evidence for Sāmoa's prehistory in relation to population size and distribution, settlement patterns and land use.

Archaeological settlement models involve the identification of functional site types like base camps and extraction sites based, in part, on differences in the range and frequency of artefact types and fauna. Using reports describing such assemblages from Aotearoa (New Zealand) archaeological sites dating to the first 300 years after initial colonisation, differences in assemblage composition are assessed against total assemblage size. Aotearoa provides a particularly useful test case for the archaeological identification of site types since human colonisation was relatively late in world human history meaning that assemblage accumulation should show functional site types like those identified in the ethnographic record. To test this, SHE (Richness, Heterogeneity, Evenness) diversity analysis is used to examine 18 artefact and ten faunal assemblages dated pre-1500 CE from a variety of Aotearoa locations. Results suggest artefact and faunal diversity measures perform poorly when employed to differentiate functional site types, suggesting that the null hypothesis of assemblage size dependency cannot be rejected. This result allows for comment on the appropriateness of ethnographically derived functional site types for the study of the archaeological record even when this record accumulated over short time periods.

The chance recovery of a large pottery sherd from a flat-bottomed dish with dentate-stamped decoration in Galley Reach, about 50 km northwest of Port Moresby, raises interesting questions concerning interactions between Lapita arrivals and the established Melanesian communities of mainland Papua New Guinea. While the geographical proximity of the find to the Caution Bay Lapita sites would suggest some connection, an analysis of the sherd indicates that it may be older than Lapita at Caution Bay. Comparisons with Island Melanesian Lapita sites indicate that the sherd is mid- to late Lapita in age, both in its form and decoration. As such, it joins the corpus of chance PNG mainland and near mainland Lapita finds of similar age. This developing pattern may have a different genesis to the Lapita dispersal into Remote Oceania and instead reflect trade-based connections between island and mainland communities in the first millennium BC. The data remain ambiguous on this point.